The sky above Nexis was dark, not with night, but with thought—aThen ever-shifting veil of memory and meaning. The sigil left by Aelion still shimmered like a scar across reality: This story cannot end cleanly.
In the heart of Darius's sanctum, a low hum pulsed from the Codex of Becoming. It hadn't yet taken its full form—still a whisper in the ether, still waiting to become what the world would need. But something else stirred now, something far more immediate.
Nyx.
She stood in the threshold of the sanctum, her eyes burning like twin voidfires, her presence wrapped in silence, tension, and a storm barely held back. Her usual composure—the cold, deadly elegance—had fractured. Darius saw it in the tightness of her jaw, the tremble in her gloved fingers, the way her shadow flickered too fast behind her.
"You touched her," Nyx said softly, but her voice was sharper than any blade she'd ever drawn. "Not just body. You let her in."
